Day #43 - Yahweh
The Presence - A Devotional for Living in Thanksgiving, Worship and Wonder
“God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord (Yahweh), the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.”
Exodus 3:15 NIV
Have you ever felt that something was so sacred you couldn’t even speak of it?
I recently heard about a man who graduated from the Navy SEAL training. They award the graduates with a trident pin for their achievement. He talked about that pin as if it were sacred. He realized that very few people on the earth will ever be able to complete that rigorous of a test to become a Navy SEAL. The trident represents something so valuable to him that he doesn’t take it out or wear it (unless a fellow SEAL dies, he wears it to the funeral).
God’s name is sacred and holy. I want us to look one more time at Exodus 3 where God tells us he is the I AM and he tells us he is the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In this moment he tells us his name when he calls himself the Lord. The Hebrew word for Lord is Yahweh here and it is the first time in the Bible that God reveals this name. Originally the Hebrew had no vowels in it so it was actually YHWH. YHWH is used over 6,800 times in the Old Testament as the primary name for the Lord.
According to Dr. Helton:
Hebrew had vowels before the vowel markers were added. But when it comes to YHWH, scholars remain uncertain exactly how this word was pronounced because the Masoretes, the scribes responsible for the vowel markings in the Hebrew Bible, used the vowels for adonai (“lord” or “master”) and would read the name as adonai or “the name” to avoid the misuse of God’s name in keeping with the third commandment. (See any standard Bible dictionary or encyclopedia for this information; e.g., I consulted Geoffrey W. Bromiley, editor, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, rev. ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], s.v. “God”) Instead of the sound of breathing, the name YHWH is related to the verb “to be” (הָוָה; hāwâ) in Hebrew. It would convey the sense that God is the “one who is,” thus, directly connecting to the “I am who I am,” or even “I will be who I will be” of Exodus 3:14 (1).
Yahweh is such a holy name the scribes did not want to mispronounce it. The name of God is holy. Moses beheld his glory and had to look away. The scribes who wrote this holy name did not even want to get it wrong. He is the God who is. He is Yahweh. There is no one like him. There is much revelation of who Yahweh is as the God who is for us to explore in the Scriptures. May we reverence His holy name.
(1) https://snhelton.blog/2022/04/26/the-name-and-the-sound-of-breath/
Holy God, Yahweh, I reverence you. Give me a holy reverence and awe for your name. I want to be a person of your presence. I want to behold you. Show yourself to me that I might know you like Moses and I might honor who you are. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Blessed be His Name. 🙏🏻
Amen.